I tend to disagree with mainstream environmentalists on what are the biggest environmental problems that need to be addressed immediately. I don't blame our environmental problems on people who drive SUVs or big polluting factories, but instead on the problem of conspicuous consumption. Here are the biggest problems in my own eyes.

1) Protecting Open Space and Rebuilding Our Cities. Too many cities are places of oppression and urban ghettos. At the same time, the family farmer finds more and more of his land being eaten up by sprawl, and his business ate by mega-agribusiness. Our first and most important task in protecting the environment is protecting the family farmer. At the same time, we need regime change in our cities and we need an activist public in the cities that forces government to reform and become responsive. We want to allow free individuals to return back to the city. When people can move back to the city, we can greatly cut back on material consumption and the need for oil.

2) Discouraging Consumption. We spend too much of our time buying new things and tossing old things. We need to learn how to make do with what we have. Environmentalists need to stop advertising so called environmentally-friendly products and start embracing what they already have.

3) Dealing with the Solid Waste Problem. The garbage that goes out to the curb is a small part of our waste. It is important to reduce that further by recycling more of that trash. Yet, at the same time we need to encourage government and industry to find ways to reuse the materials that it's currently tossing. We need to find new and creative uses for construction debris that takes up an enormous amount of space in our landfills. Waste-to-energy plants and industrial processing of solid waste (eg. pulling out metals) is one solution, but a partial solution at best.

4) Dealing with the Big Air Polluters. We have too many pollutants in our streams and forests. Mercury makes it unsafe to fish to eat regularly in most of upstate New York. The large majority of air pollution can be cut by effectively and fairly regulating the industries that produce them. We can improve emissions equipment on new cars. We need compromise that is affordable. If a plant can't give us 2005 air quality, then let's try to get 1995 air standards instead of the lack of standards from the 1960s.

5) Psychological Pollution. We need to clean up brownfields that not only pose a possibly health hazard, but are ugly. They encourage bad behavior by humans (once we have a dump we can just continue to add more trash). We need to dredge the Hudson River. We need to make our cities cleaner and more desirable. We need to create environments that make humans act in responsible ways.